Books about the Middle East for Young Children

Book reviewed in this article: Golden Windows and Other Stories of Jerusalem Adèle Geras The Hundredth Name Shulamith Levey Oppenheim, Illustrated byMichael Hays When Solomon Was King, Sheila McGill-Callahan Illustrated by Stephen T. Johnson Lebanon: New Light in an Ancient Lan, Elsa Marston Lebanon, Leila Merrell Foster Iran in Pictures     

ARE ACADEMIC MODELS OF URBAN SERVICE DISTRIBUTIONS RELEVANT TO PUBLIC POLICY?: LESSONS FROM NEW YORK

Studies identifying and explaining the patterns of service allocations within cities have proliferated in recent years. Methodologies have been refined and the quality of data has improved. Theories of service distribution tested in the research are largely of three types: (1) those that stress “underclass” explanations of racial, economic and/or political discrimination; (2) those that stress service conditions or neighborhood needs; and (3) those that stress bureaucratic decision rules. This article presents findings on the determinants of intra-city distribution patterns for sanitation, fire and police services in New York. These findings highlight some of the difficulties of existing explanations and suggest that a bureaucratic decision rule (BDR) model provides more guidance in interpreting frequently confusing and contradictory results. Though specific rules are hard to identify, use of the BDR model enables more meaningful policy recommendations.     

Book reviews

CHINA

GILLIAN BICKLEY. The Golden Needle — The Biography of Frederick Stewart (1836–1889). Hong Kong: David C. Lam Institute for East‐West Studies, 1997. 308 pp. Index, illustrations. HK$168, paper.

ZHENG CHAOLIN. An Oppositionist for Life: memoirs of the Chinese Revolutionary Zheng Chaolin , ed. and trans, by Gregor Benton. New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1997. xxiii, 333 pp. Index, biographical reference list. US$49.95, hardcover; US$18.50, paper.

JOHN W. DARDESS. A Ming Society: T'ai‐ho County, Kiangsi, in the Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996. 322 pp. Maps, tables. US$45.00, hardcover.

LEO M. DOUW and PETER POST (eds). South China: state Culture and Social Change during the 20th Century. Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1996. xvi, 253 pp. Figures, tables, glossary, introduction, bibliography, index. Dfl. 75, paper.

GEORGE C. S. LIN. Red Capitalism in South China: growth and Development of the Pearl River Delta. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1997. xii, 219 pp. C$75, hardcover.

KAM LOUIE (ed). Strange Tales from Strange Lands: stories by Zheng Wanlong. Ithaca, NY: Cornell East Asia Series, East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1993. vii, 133 pp. US$18.00, hardcover; US$12.00, paper.

JAPAN, KOREA

PURNENDRA C. JAIN (ed). Distant Asian Neighbours: Japan and South Asia. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Ltd, 1996. xii, 235 pp. Appendices, index. Rs400, hardcover.

B. McVEIGH. The Nature of the Japanese State: rationality and Rituality. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. xx, 251 pp. Index. No price given (reviewed from proofs).

SOUTH ASIA

SEKHAR BANDYOPADHYAY. Caste, Protest and Identity in Colonial India: the Namasudras of Bengal, 1872–1947. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1997. xii, 325 pp. Abbreviations, table, map, bibliography, index. £40.00, hardcover.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

LEE TING HUI. The Open United Front: the Communist Struggle in Singapore 1954–1966. Singapore: The South Seas Society, 1997. xi, 417 pp. Preface, abbreviations, select biography, index. No price given, paper.

GENERAL ASIA

JACQUELINE S. ISMAEL and ENID HILL (eds). Social Welfare and Social Development. Calgary: Detselig Enterprises Ltd, 1997. v, 195 pp. Contents, preface, contributors, articles, tables, endnotes. No price given.